


The Leaden Voice

by Amy Raine (amyraine)



Series: The Avatar and the Endless [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sandman
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Crossover, Gen, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Toph Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-26 01:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyraine/pseuds/Amy%20Raine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...sometimes despair sinks into a person like a stone, but sometimes it is fleeting like a breeze...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Leaden Voice

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do a seven part crossover featuring each of the Endless, but I ended up finishing only three so far. Maybe I'll get to the rest in the future.
> 
> Isn't Sandman the most crossoverable story ever? It just works with everything. :)

  


_I’ve let you have far too much freedom. From now on, you will be cared for and guarded 24 hours a day._

Toph plods down the hallway, guards on either side. Her shoulders slump, her footsteps thud against the floor, her whole body feels much heavier than that of a petite twelve year old girl.

  


In another place that's not really a place, but an idea, a naked woman moves silently between mirrors...

  


 _We are doing this for your own good, Toph._

There aren't many reflective surfaces in the Bei Fong household; in most of the Earth Kingdom glass is so rare as to be nearly unheard of. The Fire Nation produces quality glass, but they're a bit too busy conquering to be a reliable source for anyone except those in the colonies. Thus the occasional mirror is small and very expensive; Poppy Bei Fong owns one, which she prizes as much as her jewlery and fine silks. Not that Toph knows this, and would care if she did.

However, a small table in the corridor holds a statuette of their family symbol, a flying boar molded from silver. As they pass by there is a flash of something white in the surface of the little figurine, much paler than Toph's dress or skin. It seems almost supernaturally white. It could be just the moonlight...but there are no windows in this part of the house.

  


The woman is composed of folds of flesh and tufts of hair, with red droplets vivid against her nearly translucent skin. With a ring shaped like a fishhook on her finger, she digs a trough into her upper thigh...

  


 _I’m sorry, Toph._

Without a word the guards point to her room and she obediently goes in, head bent, eyes closed. They line up outside the door while she sits on the edge of her bed.

It's over. Trapped in the manor the rest of her life. No Rumbles to break up the endless drudgery of living. No respite from pretending to be her parents' perfect doll. No friends.

With her feet on the polished granite floors she senses vibrations from far beyond the wall of the Bei Fong estate. They tell her of three distant figures around a huge animal, lingering there, looking back toward her home. But they wouldn't linger for long.

  


The woman cannot see her directly but she feels her, the vibrations of her despair traveling into her misty realm; they are delicious...

  


 _I’m sorry, too._

For the first time ever in her short life, Toph considers going into the ground, and not coming back out. To feel the earth she loves simply fold around her like the embraces she so rarely recieves from her own mother...would that be so bad?

  


'Do it', the woman says to the damp air. A rat clambers up her leg and she scoops it up, cuddles it close...

  


 _Good bye, Aang._

…

…

No.

No. Toph is the greatest earthbender in the world. She knows this like she knows the scent of dirt and the feel of badgermole fur. The Avatar may be a dorky kid, but from all the earthbenders in the whole world he chose her as his teacher. She can get out of this house; she can go with him and those two strange people with him. She can go traveling the world.

Because—and this realization hits her like a rock, heavy and solid and real—no one is powerful enough to stop her from leaving.

Quickly she moves, not letting herself think, because if she thinks she will visualize her parents' panic at discovering her absence and that might make her change her mind. Quietly, because Toph is a master of silence, she packs a few things in a bag and vaults through the window, the dirt below rising up to cushion her landing. Her father's guards are patrolling the grounds, of course, and they spot her and shout...but she merely thrusts up a huge wall to block them and runs.

Earthbending helps her to run faster; she bursts through the bushes just as they are about to climb onto the bison. The Avatar—Aang, is the first to speak, his voice dancing like he bends. “Toph! What are you doing here...”

  


The woman moves her large shoulders in the slightest of shrugs...sometimes despair sinks into a person like a stone, but sometimes it is fleeting like a breeze, and there is always another, always another that falls...

  



End file.
